Conservation Treatment for Works on Paper
Novak Studios provides conservation treatment for modern and contemporary works on paper. The studio treats prints, drawings, watercolors, and mixed-media works for private collectors, galleries, auction houses, artist foundations, and institutions.
Treatment designed for the individual work
Conservation treatment is intervention to repair or stabilize damage while preserving the artist’s intent. Each work presents a different combination of material, history, condition, and intended use. Treatment is therefore designed individually, with structural stability and the integrity of the original surface as the priorities.
Paper is a structurally active support. It responds to humidity, light, atmospheric pollutants, and the adhesives and mounts applied to it over decades. Modern and contemporary works can add synthetic media, unstable colorants, coated and engineered papers, and materials the artist never intended to last.
Works we treat
The studio’s work is confined to a single material class. We treat prints and multiples, including screenprints, lithographs, etchings, and monotypes; drawings in graphite, charcoal, chalk, ink, and pastel; watercolors and works in gouache; acrylic and other synthetic media on paper and paper-like supports; mixed-media and collage works on paper; and bound volumes, artists’ books, and archival material on paper.
We do not treat paintings on canvas, textiles, or photographic materials. When an inquiry falls outside the studio’s specialty, we say so and refer it to a conservator who works in that area.
Beginning a treatment inquiry
The first useful step is a description of the work and, where possible, photographs of the recto and verso. This gives the studio enough context to begin a conversation about the work’s condition, whether it needs intervention, whether it needs intervention now, and whether Novak Studios is the right studio for the question.
Read the guide: Preparing a Conservation Inquiry for a Work on Paper